


Snow Day

by iwillalwaysknowyou



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Briar just wants Gorse's food and to explore Rosethorn's workshop, Domestic Fluff, Gen, Rosethorn and Lark just want the Water Temple dedicates to be better about their supply inventories, Tris just wants a nap and not to deal with snow, in winter, just pointless domestic fluff!, set between Daja's and Briar's books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:54:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29160006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwillalwaysknowyou/pseuds/iwillalwaysknowyou
Summary: “I thought it didn’t snow in Summersea,” whined Tris.Lark shrugged. “Not for many years. Certainly not like this, since I’ve been living here. But Nature does as it wishes.” She smiled. “Every now and then, it will deal us a surprise.”“I don’t like surprises,” Tris grumbled.OR: The Winding Circle gets some unexpected weather, and no one knows what to do about it.
Relationships: Briar Moss & Dedicate Rosethorn, Dedicate Lark & Dedicate Rosethorn, Trisana Chandler & Daja Kisubo & Briar Moss & Sandrilene fa Toren
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Snow Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [1allycat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1allycat/gifts).



> needless to say, inspired by the colossal snow storm that hammered my town this week LOL.

The first thing Briar noticed was the strange silence. Not _inside_ Discipline—he heard the usual creaks of old wood, and quiet thumps from Daja’s room above his, and the clatter of dishes in the common area. But somehow, all those usual noises rang…odd. Louder. Like the outside the cottage world had fallen silent.

The second thing he noticed was a dismayed groan from Tris— _No!_ —then, confusingly, _I’m not going out there_.

 _Don’t think we’ll get a choice in the matter_ , said Daja, philosophically. 

_What are you kids going on about?_ Briar sat up, kicking the tangled blanket off his legs. _People are trying to sleep here, you know_.

People _ought have been awake an hour ago_ , said Daja. _They let us sleep in_.

That much rang true: the light streaming through the window was much brighter than the usual foggy orange of shortly-after-sunrise, when Lark and Rosethorn usually woke them.

That was when he noticed the strange whooshing sounds—and the butterfly-sized white clumps drifting, in a thick curtain, outside the window.

_Wha—_

He scrambled to his feet, just as Sandry's door creaked open down the hall. After a rushed ‘Good morning, Lark!’, she barreled into his room.

“Did you see?” She stuck her nose to the windowsill, mouth open in an ‘oh’ of delight. “I haven’t seen this much snow since—since I was little, and we visited Namorn in Wolf Moon!”

Footsteps thumped down the stairs, and a second later Daja and Tris rushed in. They were already dressed, though Sandy was still in her woolly night dress and thick socks, and Briar wore only breeches.

Briar debated grumping about girls invading his space, but gave up.

He stared, instead, at the pristine white blanket covering what used to be the path to the back gate. “This can't be normal. Where did it all come from?”

“The sky.” Daja grinned. “Didn’t it snow in Sotat?”

“Never in Hajra.” His former home port lay farther south on the Pebbled Sea, and its mild winters brought only rainfall. “This looks more like Gold Ridge Valley. Did we move back there overnight and no one told me?”

Except even in Gold Ridge, where they’d visited two months back, the mild fall flurry that had caught them on their way back to Summersea had been nothing like this.

“It was just raining when we went to bed,” Tris grumbled, sounding as though she found the snow personally offensive. "Don't get how the temperature dropped so quickly."

Daja stuck her own nose to the window, a head above Sandry’s. “We sailed into a cold front once, on the sea, and the temperature dropped in a minute." She glanced up to the grey sky. "Doesn’t look like it’ll stop anytime soon.”

"I heard snowstorms can go on for days," said Sandry, wonderingly.

Tris shuddered. "Feels wrong. Not like a normal storm. Everything's all...muffled, and moving weirdly.” She huffed. "I don't think I like snowstorms."

“It’s not a snowstorm yet,” said Lark’s voice from the doorway. Snowflakes were melting on the tips of her short curls—and Little Bear’s wagging form next to her indicated why. She must’ve just let him out.

“Just a little snowfall,” she said. “With a little luck, it won’t turn into storm.”

“I thought it didn’t snow in Summersea,” whined Tris.

Lark shrugged. “Not for many years. Certainly not like this, since I’ve been living here. But Nature does as it wishes.” She smiled. “Every now and then, it will deal us a surprise.”

“I don’t like surprises,” Tris grumbled. 

“ _That’s_ not a surprise,” grinned Briar, and he ducked out of the way when she tried to elbow him.

It took him longer to dress, that morning, since he couldn’t decide whether snow required special clothes. In the end, he picked a long-sleeved shirt Lark had made him pack on the trip to Gold Ridge because it ‘shed wind’. No socks: even snow didn’t warrant socks. For all Sandry—and occasionally Tris’s—arguments, Briar was no admirer of wooly footwear. It just attracted dirt and pebbles and made it harder to run.

When he went out into the common area, Daja and Tris had set up plates and bowls for breakfast. The front door opened, letting in a frigid gust, and Rosethorn walked in, wrapped up in a thick, hooded cloak and carrying a covered basket.

She hurried to close the door, then shook off the snow on her cloak. She stomped her boots a few times on the little mat just inside the door, then looked up. Her cheeks and nose were red.

“Just as expected,” she told Lark. “Everything’s on pause. Sageroot and Winterfox will mind the temple fires, and we’ll hold the shortened noon service, since everyone’s out on snow-clearing duty.” She grimaced, glancing out the window. “Nearly a foot already, and I wager it’ll double before long.” Her eyes landed on the four kids, and she grinned malevolently. “I hope you like shoveling.”

She ignored their collective groans and took off thecloak, careful not to spill snow on the floor beyond the mat. Briar suspected the effort was in vain: the hem of her temple habit was caked with snow, too, and sure to melt wherever she walked.

“It’s not supposed to snow here,” Tris repeated, stubbornly.

“I’ll make sure to pass on your objections to the appropriate authorities,” Rosethorn informed her, putting the basket on the table. 

“Will this kill the garden plants?” asked Briar; then: “Will we have to eat only potatoes and porridge the rest of winter?”

Rosethorn snorted. “Getting fancy in your food tastes? I remember a boy who’d have eaten my weed heap raw, if he could get away with it.”

Sandry and Daja gave him wide grins, and even Tris snorted. Briar, however, found the indictment unfair.

“Like I’d ever eat anything in your garden without permission. Even the weed heap.”

Rosethorn laughed, turning to hang up her cloak on the hook by the door.

“All the plants in my winter garden are cold-hardy,” she told him. “They can survive a few days of hard frost. And snow helps protect them from the cold—along with the mulch and straw we spread on the ground last month.”

“Snow _is_ cold,” said Tris, and Briar, Daja, and Sandry got disjointed glimpses of a pointy-roofed, storied house, and a large yard covered in white.

 _I had to go out every hour and sweep the path from the gate to the front door_ , Tris grumbled, in their minds. _Aunt Uraelle hated the thought of a visitor seeing it covered in snow. Even though she never got visitors_.

 _Horrible bleating hag_ , thought Briar back, to general agreement.

“Snow insulates the ground from frost,” said Rosethorn, uncovering the basket. (Briar sniffed eagerly at the whiff of baked bread from within.)

“Like a blanket?” Sandry squinted out the window. “I heard that in northern Namorn, people who get stranded on the road in snowstorms burrow under snow to avoid freezing.”

“I’ll take a regular blanket,” decided Tris.

Briar wasn’t ready to give up his earlier line of questioning. “How come you moved my shakkan to your workshop, then? If snow won’t kill the plants?”

“Your shakkan isn’t a hardy winter crop,” said Rosethorn. “And that shelf won’t withstand several feet of snow. But the garden will. A little frost might even sweeten the carrots and parsnips. So you needn’t worry about only eating potatoes.”

“Only eating potatoes and carrots and parsnips isn’t much better,” sighed Daja, then she caught Rosethorn’s sour look. “I did like your pickled green tomatoes.”

“What a relief.” Rosethorn gave all four of them a calculating look that portended nothing good. “I seem to recall mentioning everyone had to work on snow-clearing. You can find shovels in my workshop.”

“No breakfast?” squeaked Briar.

She gave him a sweet smile. “A little hearty exercise will only increase your appetite.”

Luckily, even Rosethorn wasn’t so mean. By the time they’d all tracked down hats and gloves and mufflers, she’d pulled a platter of fresh crescent rolls from the basket. Briar eagerly polished off two rolls while Daja and Sandry debated whether the wool of Daja’s Sandry-made gloves might still try to weave itself into Daja’s bronze-skin.

“Socks,” said Rosethorn laconically as he put on his boots.

“I don’t need socks. They just itch and bother me.” He gave her a pointed look. “You work barefoot all the time.”

“Not in winter. I like my toes.”

“My toes don’t like socks.”

Rosethorn arched an eyebrow and turned away, handing the rest of the basket contents—covered with a cotton towel—to Lark. Briar wondered dreamily what else Dedicate Gorse might have hidden in there.

Once everyone was ready, Sandry and Daja helped Lark secure her workshop. The woven curtains did little to keep out the snow, so they’d have to drape thicker swaths of fabric over the curtains and secure them to the ground with stakes. Briar and Tris were tasked with clearing a proper path from the door to the gate and to the privy.

“Don’t get why we gotta do this now,” Briar grumbled, when his shovel hit a rock under the snow. “It’s still snowing; paths’ll get covered, and they’ll have us out here again in an hour.”

“We’ll put down snowmelt,” said Rosethorn, who was inspecting the firewood stack. “If we wait until the snowfall stops, Discipline will be buried up to the windows. This way, the door areas and the gate path well be cleared in case we need them.” She smiled. “After breakfast, we’ll clear a path to the main road, too.”

Briar groaned.

Tris was huffing at her own shovel. “Daja should melt this. Or the Fire Temple dedicates.” She turned to Rosethorn. “Why don’t they use heat magic on the snow? Then we wouldn’t be out here freezing.”

“No, but we might drown.” Rosethorn carried a handful of logs to the cottage door, leaving them just outside. “Melted snow must go somewhere, doesn’t it? The earth can’t absorb so much water so fast; we’d end up with a river on the main road. So I’ll thank you to stick to shovels, please.”

And she turned and marched to her workshop, pausing on the threshold again to stomp her boots and shake off the snow.

 _Makes sense_ , Briar told Tris, and she scoffed in his direction.

_You don’t like this any more than I do._

She pushed another block of snow to the side of the path, then paused. “What about blowing it away? With wind?”

Briar scratched his ear. The woolen hat was making it itch. Tentatively, he picked up a handful of snow and blew on it, hard. It flew away.

He shrugged. “Might work.”

“And we won’t melt it, so no flooding.”

“When my parents took me to Namorn, I saw wind mages clear the paths outside the palace by blowing away snow.” Sandry appeared behind them, her button nose even redder than Rosethorn’s. “But they had some sort of tools for it—kind of like giant foghorns.”

Briar gave her a disbelieving look. “Who’s ever heard of blowing snow with a foghorn?” He glanced to Daja, who shrugged back.

“Anyway, we don’t have a foghorn,” said Tris. “But I think I can make a wind cone.”

The wind wasn’t very strong, but she pulled the flimsy wisps of it to herself. Sandry’s helped braid the wisps together, and Daja to make them into a cone, until they agreed they had the right size and shape.

Holding the wind-horn cautiously, Tris turned toward the snow-covered path that led to the gate, and released her hold.

A gust of wind, shaped more like a ball than a cone, erupted in front of her. It began spinning toward the gate, whipping up strands of snow as it went and wrapping them about itself, growing larger. Sandry let out an alarmed cry.

“I don’t think that’s how the Namornese wind-mages do it!”

Little Bear, jumping up and down behind the wind-ball, barked at the top of his lungs.

Tris grabbed for the wind-ball, but it had grown too large and snowy. It dumped a giant flurry on their heads when she tried to pull it back in, and, for all of Sandry’s efforts to spin it back into something controllable, it kept whirling and whipping up more and more snow, until it had grown nearly the height of Discipline itself.

And then its roll was cut short by the cottage gate.

The snow-and-wind behemoth slammed into the gate with an earth-shaking _whoosh_. It knocked the gate off its latch, making it swing backwards with a horrible metallic shriek. The wisps of wind flew every which way, and the snow they’d balled up dropped in several uneven heaps all over the yard.

The howl of wind died down, and they were left in white, muffled silence once more. Little Bear launched himself at one of the heaps of snow, growling menacingly and poking it with his nose.

 _I don’t think that was supposed to happen_ , said Daja.

Tris shook her head slowly, stunned.

“Which part of ‘stick to shovels’ was unclear?” snarled Rosethorn, from her workshop door. That, Briar noticed, had been one of the places where Tris’s wind-ball had dumped a snow heap: the door only opened a few inches, now, and Rosethorn had stuck her head out through the crack to shoot them all a blazing glare.

“Fix it,” she growled. “And if I get another whiff of magic, I’ll glue those shovels to your hands.”

# # #

The best that could be said of the hour that followed was that exercise did indeed help them all build a hearty appetite.

As soon as Briar had shoveled away the snow blocking her workshop door, Rosethorn came out carrying a giant bucket. She was still glaring at him, so he bit his lips and withheld any questions, but he couldn't help curious glances into the bucket. 

After a moment, she huffed and held out the bucket.

“Snowmelt mix,” she said. “Tell me what’s in it.”

“Uh.” Briar sniffed tentatively at the dusty mixture inside. It looked—and smelled—like sawdust mixed with herbs.

He let his power touch it. There weren’t living plants in there, but he recognized some that had been.

“Corn,” he guessed. “Pine, uhm, beet…thistle?” He’d never seen the plant grow naturally, but Rosethorn had showed it to him in her jars of seeds and spices. 

She gave him a brisk nod, and from the look in her eyes he could tell she was pleased.

“Woods chips—mostly pine—mixed with dried fermented corn and thistle seeds, with a little salt and beet juice added in,” she said. “And a few words on it to keep the cold at bay.”

She pulled off a glove then reached into the bucket and took out a handful of its contents, tossing them outside her workshop door.

“Be sparing—a small handful should keep an area snow-free for a few hours. Spread it on the paths you just cleared, and if the snow hasn’t stopped by noon, we’ll do it again.”

Briar poked tentatively at the wood-pulpy mush. “You never showed me how to make this.”

“The things I haven’t showed you yet could fill libraries," replied Rosethorn, with a snort. "But rest easy: you'll get a chance to make more after breakfast. I’ll wager temple supplies are low, if they exist at all. The most snow I’ve seen in my fifteen winters could fit into this bucket.”

“How come we’re getting so much snow now, then?”

She glanced up to the thick, grey clouds. Snowflakes caught on her eyelashes, making her blink to clear them.

“I don’t pretend to guess at the forces of nature, my boy. Every place has freakish weather now and then. Luckily, we’re prepared to handle it.” She nodded to the bucket. “Remember: don’t use too much. Show the girls how to do it, too.”

And she marched back into the workshop, then came out a minute later carrying several containers in her arms. He recognized them as her can of keep-warm tea, the breathe-easy mix she gave Lark for the wheezes, and two smaller tins whose contents he didn’t know. He really ought to inventory her workshop, he decided. If she let him. It truly was an endless trove of treasures.

By the time they’d finished spreading Rosethorn’s snowmelt mix, Lark had set out a nice breakfast consisting of Dedicate Gorse’s berry jam tarts, along with their usual porridge with milk. They were running low on honey, so Lark was saving it--but the jam tarts made up for its absence. Ravenously, everyone fell upon their bowls, until not a single crumb or drop was left at the table. Nor under it: Little Bear took his floor-cleaning duties seriously.

Four runners had arrived during the meal, with tablets of urgent messages for Lark and Rosethorn. Plainly, the Winding Circle was in a flurry of unusual activity.

“Niko's needed at the Hub today,” said Lark, while Sandry cleared the table. “The scriers want to make sure this sudden weather shift doesn’t portend anything bad. So we’re in charge of your lessons for the morning. Sandry—we’ll start with making compression wraps. Dedicate Staghorn says they’ve had several dozen slips and sprain in the dormitories this morning, and the Water Temple is short on compression bandages and slings.”

She exchanged a brief look with Rosethorn, who rolled her eyes. Whoever was in charge of infirmary supplies was plainly incompetent—which Rosethorn had said often, loudly, and to whoever listened. Briar was beginning to suspect one of the novices was siphoning supplies to sell on the black market.

“Daja and Tris,” Lark went on, “Can you figure out what’s needed to fix the gate? I'm sure Frostpine will lend you the right tools and parts.”

“And whoever finishes first,” drawled Rosethorn, “the roof of my workshop needs clearing.”

“You don’t walk on the roof,” Tris pointed out.

“I work under it," Rosethorn retorted, "and it wasn't made to support several feet of snow. I'd rather not have it cave in on my head.”

Briar gaped. “That could happen?” His shakkan was Rosethorn’s workshop! And all her supplies and tools—and the honey jars and fancy spices! Not to mention Rosethorn herself, and her head, which was more precious than all the fancy supplies.

"It's not _likely_ ," Rosethorn admitted. "But the addition roofs aren't as sturdy as the main roof. And the workshop one is too flat; rain drains, but snow will stick, and it can get heavy." 

“I’ll clear it,” he offered, but she shook her head. 

"I need you helping me make more snowmelt. And frostbite and snowburn salve, and whatever else Dedicate Quail's message listed."

“The Water Temple is out of that many supplies?” Sandry was stacking dishes by the wash bowl. “Do they ever have anything on hand?” 

_Someone’s definitely nicking supplies to sell_ , Briar opined. He’d already shared his suspicions with the girls, after the pirate attack.

 _You should tell Lark and Rosethorn_ , Daja said, but he shrugged.

 _Water Temple business. Won’t go sticking my neb where it don’t belong_.

“Rarely,” Rosethorn responded to Sandry. She was about to add something else—about the Water dedicates, Briar was sure—but she caught Lark’s look and amended. “Frostbite is, admittedly, a rare concern around here. I suppose no one could’ve foreseen the need to stock up.”

“You did,” Briar pointed out. “You showed me a jar of frostbite salve just last week. And you had a bucket of snowmelt.”

“I grew up in the Anderran foothills, where half of every town lost toes to frostbite. Teaches one to be prepared.” She stood. “Now, if you’re all done eating—oh, Mila’s sake.”

Another knock on the door, which Briar assumed could only be another urgent message. It was a note from Dedicate Vetiver tasking Lark with organizing the other weavers and looms to work on blankets and gloves and whatever other inventory the dormitories, infirmary, and various workshops needed.

Lark pulled Sandry aside to teach her how to do bandages, then, wrapping herself in a cloak—and smiling at Rosethorn’s grumble about being careful not to breathe in too much cold air—she marched outside.

The same went on through the afternoon. Every hour, something else turned up that needed doing, until they each had four different tasks waiting.

Frostpine needed Daja to help him make ice grips—spiky little metal chains one wrapped about one’s boots, to keep from slipping—for the wall guards and the dedicates clearing the roads. Sandry, after two hours making compression wraps, was called on to inventory loom supplies and serve hot tea to the weavers, who were having trouble in the cold. Tris cleared the roof of Rosethorn’s workshop and dusted it with snowmelt, then had to help Niko work out the details of a weather-mage spell gone awry.

Briar spent the day mixing salves and running to deliver Rosethorn’s jars wherever they were needed. By his second delivery run, she forced him into socks with a snarl about lost toes, and he didn’t fight it.

Rather than dwindle, the snow became denser, faster. The wind picked up, whipping about and sneaking between layers of clothes to claw at any piece of exposed skin. By late afternoon, Rosethorn’s workshop had become to cold to work in, so she moved them inside the cottage and had Briar make more tea while she finished the latest batch of salve.

At dusk, the girls and Lark dragged in, cheeks and noses cold-burnt and the hems of their coats frozen. Rosethorn got them dry clothes and fresh socks and sat them down with steaming mugs of keep-warm tea between their hands before Briar could blink. She really knew what she was doing, when snow weather was concerned. He wondered if there was anything she didn’t know.

Dinner came from another of Dedicate Gorse’s baskets, since no one had time to cook. But as always, the kitchen master had come through: the pot of lamb stew smelled so good it made Briar’s mouth water, and the dinner rolls were fluffy and sprinkled with baked cheese.

Too bad everyone was too spent to do more than nod tiredly over their bowls. After a day running about in the chilly wind, the sudden heat inside Discipline had made them all wilt.

“The weather mages now predict several days of this,” said Lark. “It’s a proper snowstorm.”

“Last week they swore we’d get only moderate rainfall,” Rosethorn bit out. “What’s the point of specializing as a weather mage if you can’t forecast the worst winter storm the land’s had in decades?”

“Niko thinks it’s not a natural storm.” Tris had put her arms on the table and lowered her head on them. She sounded as animated as an overboiled noodle.

“What’s that?” Rosethorn directed a menacing look at her. “Someone did this?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” Tris groaned, picking up her head. “The weather mages in Summersea tried to repair one of the great spells that was damaged by the earthquake and the pirate attack. But they made a mistake and dropped the air temperature too fast.”

“That will cause some weather,” murmured Lark, glancing outside. “Does Niko know a way to fix this?”

“Wait it out. The weather mages already undid their error, but there’s no stopping the storm, now.” Tris’s wan expression sobered. “No one can do that.”

Briar and the girls nodded. They, too, had learned better by now than to try and stop Nature, once it got started.

Lark and Rosethorn exchanged one of those looks of theirs, that often made Briar wonder if they could secretly talk inside their heads, too. Sandry said they just knew each other very well and could understand each other without words—but he wasn’t convinced.

“I suppose we ought to be grateful we didn't see worse from this bungled spell,” said Rosethorn. "Could've been cyclones. Or boiling seas. Someone ought to withdraw those mages' credentials."

Lark chuckled. “Sounds like an honest mistake. We’ve made plenty, ourselves, to know that sometimes there’s no helping a spell gone awry.”

“None of my mistakes ever left an entire city buried for a week,” muttered Rosethorn. She caught Lark’s expression, and her lips quirked. “Well, not buried in snow, at any rate. And I was barely out of the schoolroom, not a world-renowned mage in the Duke’s employ.”

Lark grinned, while the children stared at each other.

“Wait,” said Briar. “What? You made a mistake and left a city buried…?”

“Of course not,” said Rosethorn. “I never make mistakes. Oh, look at that, someone’s at the door again.”

She stood, grinning, and opened the door just as the person outside banged a second time.

It was a tall, plump boy in white habit with a yellow band around the sleeves. One of the older air temple novices, Briar guessed. Snow dotted his shoulder-length braids. 

“Dedicate Crane wants you,” he commanded Rosethorn, with no greeting. 

Her shoulders stiffened, and brief, aghast silence fell in the little cottage.

Daja gave the novice a half-disbelieving, half-pitying look. _This kak’s lack of manners is gonna get him skinned_ , she predicted.

 _She was gonna skin him anyway, if he came from Crane_ , said Tris.

 _She might’ve hesitated if he acted nice_ , Briar admitted.

“He said to come immediately,” added the boy, and Rosethorn made a noise somewhere between a gasp and one of Little Bear’s growls.

 _Here we go_ , Briar announced, a little more eager than strictly necessary. It was nice when Rosethorn's sharp tongue was directed at someone other than himself.

“Dedicate Crane must operate under the mistaken belief that I am one of his bird-brained apprentices, to be _summoned_ on his august whims,” Rosethorn snarled, beautifully. “You can go right back to his vainglorious highness, however, and tell him to—” 

“Door, please,” Lark stood up and hurried to Rosethorn’s side. “The cold’s getting in. Good evening,” she told the Air novice with a pointed smile.

He stared at her. “Uh—good evening. Sorry.” He looked back to Rosethorn, “But he says it’s urgent.”

“Is it? Did he get his head stuck—”

Lark cleared her throat. “Did Dedicate Crane say what help he _needed_ from Dedicate Rosethorn, perhaps?”

She ignored Rosethorn’s hiss of ‘I have a few suggestions as to what he needs’.

“Er—the greenhouse.” The boy must’ve realized he was in danger; he backed away from Rosethorn. “The snow’s damaging the glass roof—uh, Dedicate Frostpine’s got a way to help, but Dedicate Crane thought they’ll need more help with the uh, plant part of it. But it’s urgent,” he insisted. “Dedicate Frostpine says the roof could collapse!”

Rosethorn was already reaching for her cloak.

“It would be no great pity if that glass monstrosity shattered,” she grumbled. “But I suppose those poor plants he’s got captive inside aren’t to blame.” She hurriedly wrapped a scarf around her face, then scowled at the baffled novice. “Well? Get out, boy—I don’t have all evening to waste on Crane’s inane problems. I _told_ him a glass house was a poor idea.”

Lark passed her a pair of dry gloves as she went out the door. “I’ll keep a plate warm for you.”

Rosethorn gave her a small smile, then glanced around her to Briar.

“Try to finish that last batch of frostbite salve—and I suppose we’ll need more snowmelt, if this storm will last the week.”

“Won’t you need help at the greenhouse?” he asked, hopeful. He’d been eager for a chance to get another look in there.

Rosethorn's lips pressed into a wicked smile.

“Perhaps Tris’s wind-horn might do some good. Only this time, aimed at the greenhouse, not our gate.” She shrugged off Lark’s sighing chide. “Just an idea.”

With that, she pulled the door shut, and they heard her rushing the air novice down the cleared path. Lark sighed again and shook her head.

“The wind-horn could’ve worked,” Tris muttered, to no one in particular. “It’s just a matter of figuring out how to blow away the snow properly.”

Sandry shrugged. “Maybe I’ll write my cousins in Namorn and see if they know a wind-mage we can ask.”

“I could make a horn—a real one—to channel the wind through,” said Daja. “So it doesn’t go out of control or take another shape.”

Lark put her tea mug down on the table with a loud bang.

“No more experiments until we’re out of this storm, please. I’d rather not have to rebuild the whole house.” She watched their disappointed expressions and chuckled. “I suppose we’ll have to find a way to make this week more bearable… Briar, where’s the blue jar Rosethorn brought in earlier?”

He got up and found it in the cabinet. Taking off the lid, he found a coarse, brown powder inside, that smelled rich and bitter, with notes of cherry and cinnamon and other things he couldn’t tell.

“What’s this?”

“Irodi cacao. A rare variety; Rosie knows a green mage there who sends it to her as thanks for her consultations.” Lark smiled. “We try to keep it for special occasions, when we need a little infusion of good cheer.”

“Today counts,” decided Tris, and Sandry and Daja chorused “Yes” with identical nods.

“Even Little Bear needs some good cheer,” said Sandry. “He slipped and rolled all the way down to the wall, earlier, when some of the snow shifted.”

“Poor Bear.” Lark scratched his ear. “I’m afraid this treat isn’t for him, but perhaps he’ll make do with the last bits of dinner roll.”

The dog’s tail thumped excitedly, a sign he did not mind swapping one treat for another, so long as he wasn’t ignored in the general distribution of cheer.

Lark instructed Briar to set a pot of milk on the stove. By the time that warmed, Sandry had cleared the table—leaving a plate in the oven for Rosethorn—and Lark pulled out six clean mugs. She spooned a little powder into each, then added milk and a little honey from their dwindling reserves.

It was the best thing Briar had tasted.

Yet another treasure from the unsuspected depths of Rosethorn’s workshop. Perhaps after he finished the batch of salve, he’d go explore it some more. Though…perhaps not tonight. She didn’t usually mind when he sniffed about and asked questions, but she was sure to come back in a mood, after dealing with Dedicate Crane.

When Lark wasn’t looking, he sneaked a second heaping spoonful of honey into the cocoa mug they’d set aside for Rosethorn. She’d need the extra treat, he decided. He could always skip his honey for tomorrow’s tea, to make up for it.

While he finished the salve, the girls tidied up and went to spread more snowmelt on the paths. By the time Briar joined, Daja had discovered that snow could easily be molded into various shapes, and she quickly constructed a tower. Sandry immediately demanded a second one, and Tris demanded they make it higher. They built it by the gate, where everyone agreed towers belonged.

The storm had picked up again. Lark ushered them inside and sent them to bed; Rosethorn hadn’t returned yet, but Briar kept an ear out and heard her voice later, talking to Lark about the greenhouse and midnight service. Reassured that everyone was again safe and warm under Discipline’s creaking roof, he rolled on his mattress, kicked off the blanket, and fell asleep, with the muffled howl of wind outside the walls, and clumps of snow knocking gently against his window.


End file.
